And the Hills Opened Up (5 page)

part two

Death Above, Death Below

7

When Elwood Hayes envisioned robbing the Dennison Mining Company, he’d figured something might go wrong, some unexpected devilry that might cost them a bullet or two.  Hayes had been on the wrong side of law for three years, ever since he’d struck a man too square in an alley fight and sent the dumb bastard to an early grave.  He’d learned to expect nasty surprises when you tried to part a man from his money—some chicken-headed local who appeared out of nowhere to gape and blink, a farmer’s kid who favored himself a hero and yearned to see his picture in the paper.  Any time you tried to conduct yourself in some profitable yet illegal business, trouble was bound to show its ugly, bucktoothed head.

But Lord, this was a new one, even to him.

“Hell, Johnny.”

“You saw him, Mr. Hayes.  You saw him provocate me.”

“He spilt some beer.”

“Right on my knee, he spilt it.  Right after that smart mouth talk about us being rock moles.”

The whores on the saloon’s front porch had stuck their heads inside to watch the action.  The stagecoach guard was lying on the floor, kicking his feet as he bled out on the barroom floor, surrounded by a large pool of spilled beer and broken glass.  His friends had gotten to their feet to remove their hats and watch him die.  They hadn’t drawn their pistols yet but Hayes knew it was only a matter of time until they forgot their shock and turned against Johnny.  The question of the moment was whether the Hayes Gang should stand with the fool or hand him over.  Johnny had killed the man straight out, with no eye to robbery or common sense.  They should have left the kid back in Denver, with the other thin-skinned young men who dwelt there, and it was Elwood’s own fault Johnny had traveled with them this far.  He’d shown the boy too much kindness in the face of too many obvious faults and now a time of reckoning had come.

“What you thinking, El?”

Elwood turned to see his own reflection in Roach Clayton’s spectacles.  He looked pale and out of sorts.  Almost like one of his men had done something so goddamn stupid it defied the mind’s powers.

“We go down a man, it’s just going to make it harder to bust into that fortress down the street.”

Johnny, perhaps stunned himself, had joined the coach guards as they stood above their dying friend.  One of the guards was pressing at the wound with a rag from the bar, but the blood kept seeping through.  The bartender, Caleb, had stepped outside to see if he could scare up the town sheriff. 

“We’ve got your brother now,” Roach whispered back, his breath smelling like whiskey.  “We can make do with four.”

Elwood looked past Roach and saw that Clem and Owen had spread out down the bar and dropped their hands to their sides.  They expected a shootout, but they didn’t see the two guards who’d left their whores to stand along the upstairs balcony and watch the commotion below.  They were standing in their dirty skivvies, each holding a rifle as they watched everything play out with a clear and steady gaze.  After a hard ride, they hadn’t had time enough to get properly drunk and they’d been interrupted in their attentions—they might as well have been two sleeping rattlesnakes Johnny Miller had poked with a stick for the hell of it.

“Jesus!” the dying man shouted, then kicked up his feet in one last mighty convulsion before falling still.  Johnny Miller laughed and looked back at the bar, his eyes gleaming in an uncanny way.

“How you like that, fellas?  A banker’s errand boy calling out to the Good Lord in his last moment, like he’d never heard of those moneylenders getting driven out of the temple.”

The stagecoach guards turned in unison to regard young Johnny Miller and a new stillness fell upon the barroom.  Hayes felt a tickling on the nape of his neck that signaled the proximity of Death.  He paused in uncertainty no longer, striding across the barroom floor and dropping Miller with one punch across the right temple.  The surprised young man collapsed to the floor with a thud and Hayes stepped back to shake the heat out of his fist. 

“There, fellas.  He’s all yours.”

After some discussion, two guards went off and fetched one of the cheap pine coffins Leg Jameson kept stocked in his general store.  Then the guards lifted the dead man into the coffin and hammered the lid on right there.  When the box was sealed, the four living guards sat down around it and began drinking again, using the coffin for a table.  When the unconscious Johnny Miller showed signs of stirring, they trussed him up with a rope, also fetched from the store, and gagged him with a handkerchief.  They debated the young man’s fate between them, loudly proclaiming they didn’t know if it were best to hang Miller outright or turn him over to the law in Rawlins, where the killing could be done properly in front of a large crowd.

Elwood Hayes didn’t like any of this, but he made himself stay in the bar and bear witness to what he saw as a breakdown of discretion and leadership.  The Hayes Gang had moved to a table on the opposite side of the bar, about as far as they could possibly get from the coach guards within the confines of the building, but they could still hear enough to put them off their drink.

“I’d like to shut them all up for good.”

Elwood turned to his younger brother, now sitting at his elbow.

“That right?”

“Yeah.  Sure, they lost one of theirs, but they don’t have to act so sore about it.  They probably didn’t even like the fella.”

Elwood took a drink of whiskey and rolled it along his tongue.  “They’re blowing off steam,” Clem Stubbs said, picking at the table with his pocket knife, his bushy red beard sweeping across the tabletop as he worked.  “By the end of the night, they’re likely to open that box up and dance their man across the bar, just to make the whores laugh.”

Roach Clayton crossed his arms.

“Who cares?  We’ll be gone by then, with their money in our pockets.”

The saloon door creaked open and Hayes looked up, hoping it was the head guard, the one who’d stayed back with the Dennison accountant after the payroll delivery.  Instead, two other men entered the bar, a gray-haired priest and a smooth cheeked lawman who couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.  They glanced around the room, nodded to the bartender, and went directly toward the stagecoach guards, who got to their feet as a group.  The sheriff asked them something and they all looked at Johnny Miller, tied and gagged on the floor.

The preacher circled round the men and stopped at the foot of the coffin.  He lowered his head and clasped his hands, praying over the body.  The sheriff and the other men fell silent for a moment and looked at the coffin, too, as if they could all see through its cheap pine lid.

“Maybe they’ll bury them side to side,” Owen said.  “The killer and the killed.”

“Now, isn’t that a sweet notion,” Stubbs said, digging a deep new furrow into the table and filling the air with the scent of wood shavings. 

Hayes shifted in his seat, the weight of his revolver pressing against the small of his back. 

“Whatever the hell they do, I wish they’d take the whole circus outside.”

The sheriff looked over at their table, frowning.  One of the shotguns jawed in the lawman’s ear.  Finally, after he’d been jawed at enough, the sheriff broke away and ordered the others to take the coffin outside along with Johnny Miller.  The guards did as they were told, three of them lifting the coffin between them while the fourth grabbed Miller by his ropes and dragged him to his feet.  Johnny shouted through his gag, his words unintelligible and distressed.  One of the guards punched Johnny in the stomach, knocking the wind from him, and a moment later Miller was dragged quietly from the saloon, his feet as heavy as if they’d been filled with wet clay.  The preacher followed behind the prisoner, head bowed and hands clasped.  The sheriff walked toward their table with a pained looked upon his boyish face. 

“Evening, gentlemen.”

Hayes nodded and removed his hat.

“Evening, Sheriff.”

“That was your friend who shot the National man?”

“Yes, sir.  His name is Johnny Miller.”

The sheriff took a notepad from his pocket and a pencil and scribbled something down.  Stubbs and Roach glanced at Elwood, who kept his face blank. 

“They wanted to hang Mr. Miller straight off, but I convinced them to hold up and send him to Rawlins for a proper trial.”  The sheriff glanced up from his notepad.  “This isn’t the lawless Old West anymore, even out here.  Mr. Dennison expects Red Earth to run smoothly and he pays my salary to make sure that happens.”

Elwood nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the sheriff’s.  He expected the kid to flinch and look away, but he looked right back.  He’d be one to deal with later.

“So what brings you gentlemen to Red Earth?  You prospecting?”

Elwood smiled and glanced at Roach.  “Prospecting for work is more like it.  We were hoping Dennison was hiring still.”

The sheriff scribbled some more and stuffed the notebook back into his pocket.  “You’ll have to talk to Hank Chambers about that.  He’s the foreman.  The company shift ends at six.  You’ll find him at home sometime after.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” Owen said.  “We surely appreciate that information.”

The sheriff glanced at the younger Hayes.

“Say, I know you, don’t I?”

“Yes, sir, I’m Owen Hayes, and I’ve been doing some independent prospecting in the area.  You probably seen me around town.”

“Find anything worth working?”

“Not yet.”

“I’d be surprised if you did.  Dennison’s men have surveyed this whole valley and they can sniff out good ore like they planted it there themselves.”

Owen grinned and looked around the bar stupidly.  Elwood willed his younger brother to shut his mouth and leave it at that but, of course, he could not do so. 

“Damn it all,” Owen said, slapping the table.  “Why didn’t anyone tell me that in the first place?  I might as well pack up my kit tonight.”

The young sheriff looked toward the saloon’s front door, unsmiling.  A few of the whores had come out of their rooms up on the second floor and were leaning over the railing in a suggestive manner.

“Well, gentlemen,” the sheriff said, “sometimes moving on doesn’t hurt none, either.”

8

Hank Chambers emerged from his feverish afternoon nap to find a man looming above his bed.  The foreman raised his head, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and a terrible thirst stuffed in his throat.  The visitor tilted his chin, watching Chambers with undisguised curiosity.  The visitor’s face was deeply lined, wrinkled around the eyes and scorched acorn brown from a lifetime of working beneath the sun.  He wore a broken old straw hat with a tattered brim. 

“Pa.”

The visitor nodded.  He removed his hat and fanned himself with it, as if he could actually feel the cabin’s trapped heat and had not been in the ground for over twenty long years.  Chambers swung his leg over the bed’s edge, making to stand.  His body trembled from the effort.

“Goodness, Pa.  I’ve missed you so much.  Everybody has—”

Noise from another part of the cabin.  His wife, asking if he needed something.  Chambers turned his head, as if he could see through the partition sheet and make out whatever lay beyond it.

When he turned back, his visitor was gone.

The foreman sighed and lay back in bed.  His wife came into the room with a cup of water, frowning.  “I thought you might have been calling for water,” she said, her eyebrows folding in on each other.  “Was that it?”

“I saw him, Bonnie.”

“Who?”

“Pa.  I thought I saw my pa standing right here, clear as day.  He was even wearing that beat-up straw hat he favored.”

His wife leaned over the bed and felt Chambers’ forehead with the back of her hand.  It felt cool and nice and he found himself reaching up from beneath the cotton sheet to cup one of her heavy breasts.  It felt as good as ever in his palm, possessing a calming weight that returned him to the world of the living.

Bonnie leaned into his groping, kissed his hot forehead, and pulled back to adjust her hair. 

“Mr. Chambers, please.  You need your rest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She handed him the cup of water, which made him sit up again and lean against the headboard. 

“Drink all of that.” 

Chambers did so, gladly.

“I’ll fetch you another so you can drink that, too.  And a fresh cloth for your forehead.  You could cook eggs on it.” 

Chambers smiled and watched his wife go back through the partition’s doorway.  That was a good woman, there.  He’d done well for himself by marrying Bonnie and she seemed to feel the same about him.  Any way you looked at it, it wasn’t every woman who’d pick up house every few years and haul out to another goddamn mining camp, where she was sure to deal with more dust and disorderly behavior.

The foreman closed his eyes and had started to drift back to sleep when somebody hammered on the cabin’s door.  He heard the front door creak as Bonnie answered and the sound of her voice, trying to hush the visitor.  The visitor replied in a low but excited tone and whatever he said must have had a strong effect, because suddenly Bonnie was beside the bed, wringing her hands.

“Randy Bale’s here, Hank.  He says there’s been some kind of accident in the mine.” 

Chambers was on his feet and moving before he knew exactly what he was about.  He found his clothes piled on the floor, still damp with his earlier sweat.  He pulled on his shirt and drawers and trousers while Bonnie tisked.

“Please, Hank.  You’re too poorly.  Can’t Andrew handle this?  Isn’t this what a shift-boss is for?”

“I’m the foreman.  This is what I’m for.”

Bonnie wrapped her arms around him, ready to throw him back down in bed herself.  Chambers took a deep breath, trying to clear his thoughts, and felt his wife’s bosom press against his own. 

“I’ll be home before you know it,” Chambers whispered, squeezing his wife with both arms.  “I’ll guzzle all the water you see fit.”

Randy Bale was standing outside the cabin, his gaze fixed south of town.  He was only sixteen or so, the kind of fleet-footed kid they’d have sent if something had gone wrong.  Normally, Randy would be mucking the stables and tending to the mules not on shift.

Chambers clapped the kid on the shoulder, making him jump. 

“Easy, boy.  Easy.” 

They started walking toward the mine, speaking as they went.  Chambers ignored the sun’s fierce heat and the fresh dizziness that threatened to overtake him.  He focused on the hills in the distance and the small, vulnerable group of buildings at their base.

“What happened?”

“Three men dead, sir.”

“Cave in?”

“No.  I mean, yes, sir, some rock fell in, but that wasn’t what killed them.”

“Then what was it?”

The boy glanced up at the foreman.  “Something…something got at their throats.”

Chambers pulled up.  Sweat poured down in his brow in a mighty cascade of miserable salt water.

“Their throats?”

“Ripped’em clean out, sir.  Blood all over.”

Chambers set his hands on his hips.  He felt like keeling over right there in the scrub grass. 

“Run back to my cabin, Randy, and tell Bonnie to give you my rifle.  Go now and catch up with me.”

The boy took off like a scared antelope, moving as if glad to vent his energy.  The foreman watched him run for a moment, wondering if he should have sent the boy for the sheriff and more men instead.  What kind of animal might find itself lost inside a mountain and decide to start killing?  Bear?  Mountain lion?

Or did they have a murderer on their hands?

Chambers was swaying on his feet by the time he approached the mine’s entrance, Randy Bale right on his heels.  He stopped as the boy caught up and handed over his Winchester.  Chambers levered the rifle open and checked the cartridge while Randy panted beside him.  

“Who was it killed?”

“Hans Berg, Jake Keller, and Bear Tollackson.” 

The foreman clenched his teeth.  All three good workers, good men, and whatever had taken down a giant like Tollackson must have been pretty formidable itself. 

“Nobody saw nothing, either.  They was just down in the Brink Lode, swamping out the new rock.  When Mr. Klieg went to check on them, he found their candle still burning but the men lying there, dead.  He thought they were pulling his leg before he saw all the blood.”

Chambers nodded and looked in on the dry house, which sat about ten yards outside the mine’s entrance.  With its roughhewn benches and cubby holes, the dry house served as a changing room for the miners, who usually came up soaked to the bone after each shift—the temperature in the mine was pleasant enough, cool in the summer and warm in winter, but water would seep through the earth to drip upon your head and fill the gaps you’d just chiseled out. 

Chambers heard Randy Bale breathing hard behind him.

“None of the men have come up?”

“No, sir.  Don’t look like it.”

Chambers checked his pocket watch.  Six-fifteen on a Saturday.  The dry house should have been packed with men coming off the week’s last shift.

“They must reckon it takes an army to sort out three dead men.  You wait here, Randy.”

“Sir?”

“Mind the entrance and tell any men coming out to wait for me in the dry house before they go into town.  I want to talk to everybody before they take to drinking and whoring.”

“Yes, sir.”   

Chambers walked into the mine’s entrance.  The temperature dropped mercifully as he left the daylight behind and headed down the tunnel, moving slowly to let his eyes adjust before stepping into the Main Room, which was really just a big, hollowed out room, scraped clean of any copper ore it might have once had.  They kept a long supply bench in the Main Room where you could come back for dynamite, fuses, hammers, chisels, candles, and whatever else was lying around.  An old man named Lionel usually minded the bench, keeping a lamp burning and logging who took what, but he wasn’t sitting in his usual chair this evening, complaining about his lame right leg to anybody who’d listen.

“Lionel?  You around here?”

Chambers voice carried through the air and died out against the damp rock.  He dug through the supplies piled on the bench, pulled out an oil wick lamp, and lit it on the main lamp.  The amount of light in the Main Room doubled, revealing the white shine of condensation on the rocks overhead.  A bat flitted across the room, dipped toward Chamber’s face, and rose again as he snapped his fingers, a movement as automatic to him as scratching his ass. 

The Dennison Mine was still young and growing, but it was already sizeable.     Three tunnels were connected to the Main Room—left took you to the Emerald Lode, right took you to the White Lode, and straight ahead took you deep into the hillside toward the Brink Lode, which ran two levels below the main. 

Hank Chambers started down the gleaming metal rails of the Brink tunnel, wondering at the quiet and wishing he weren’t alone.